Hi and welcome to my blog. It’s like a sketchbook, a peek into our process, my scattered thoughts, personal reflections and a bit of fun.

Art in the skies

November 23rd 2016

With November being the month for looking at the skies, gunpowder and Lewes being my home town I thought I’d use the occasion to look at the exceptional work of artist Cai Guo-Qiang, who creates unforgettable art experiences, with the unusual medium of gunpowder.

Starting with gunpowder exploding canvases he moved to site specific explosions:

‘I want to reflect on the experiences of the human race from a larger perspective of the universe and to remind us that we are not alone in the universe and that there are other eyes looking at us from this infinite universe.’

He has perfected his gunpowder art, no one does it like him and through his art he expresses all our shared childhood dreams with a true expression of human emotion.

“More than a thousand years ago, when the Chinese discovered gunpowder, they were actually looking for an elixir to make them immortal.” But Cai, despite the spectacle that his gunpowder paintings and explosion events have been known to whip up, isn’t out for immortality. “I don’t think any art is meant to be kept forever, immortal on the earth that we inhabit. What I attempt to achieve is a sense of the eternal from the ephemeral—to inspire a conversation with the greater universe.” Artsy Oct 10th 2016

Talking about his installation Heritage 2013 from Falling Back to Earth:

‘The work took a long time to conceive and produce, says Cai. “It’s like being pregnant – once you give birth, your child has a life of their own and they are no longer a part of your body. They have their own destiny.” And what does he think of his baby? “It looks better and exceeds my expectations. When I first conceived this work I thought it would be related to environmental issues that we have here on Earth. But once the work was finished I realised that it relates to broader issues, such as our position within the universe.”

Conceived for the Deutsche Bank Collection, the work was inspired by Berlin and its history, its message is generally valid. “I wanted to portray the universal human tragedy,“ says Cai, “resulting from this blind urge to press forward, the way we try to attain our goals without compromise,”

‘Sky Ladder’

Cai Guo-Qiangmakes a 500m ladder of fire to connect the Earth to the universe.

Talking about not being alone in the universe The Guardian Science states that there are 20 times more galaxies in the universe than previously thought bringing it up to a mind blowing 2 trillion, of which 90 % of the galaxies have yet to be studied with the analysis reaching back more than 13bn years, about the time of the Big Bang which is thought to have given birth to the universe. Food for thought when watching Cai’s work, shinning a vibrational message for human kind into outerspace, now that’s what I call Space Art !!

The surprising find is based on 3D modeling of images collected by the Hubble Space Telescope. Photograph: Nasa/PA

With Surface print because of its ‘wet on wet’ print process and its squidgy big fat rollers that paste the ink onto the paper it resembles a wood block feel giving the design a ‘hand – made’ charm that is a sought after look. I loved developing this geometric design, the print method here really gives the ink (especially the metallic) a chance to form lines around the pattern creating ridges, and marks that are totally unique to each print, making each time the roller prints, a one-off stamped mark.

Surface printing machine – lots of ink in print trays

Great 8 Moonlight on the Surface printing machine – just before being rolled.

Surface print machine printing Dandy wallpaper

Great 8 Gold Set – Board shot for new wallpaper books.

Rotary printing is similar to screen printing, in fact it was introduced not long after screen printing came about in the early 1950’s – used for none tonal work and more graphic designs, we have used this method for papers in the past such as our wallpaper ‘Kew’ Elle Decoration loved it so much they awarded it best wall-coverings. Here it works really well for the Letter wallpaper, a one screen print, creating a modern take on the letter-press look. I especially enjoyed developing the Tea Rose colourway, with its soft copper / bronze tones and the Black Letter Boutique a charcoal black ground with warm golden letters.

Letter Times- Rotary print a development on from flatbed screen printing allowing for larger volumes and larger scale patterns than Gravure and Surface- up to 100cm in height , where as Gravure is 68cm.

Inspiring Asia

October 6th 2012

This week I listened and saw 3 interesting and fresh things from Asia that were new to me.

Vogue’s Chinese Editor Angelica Cheung’s video for NOWNESS is a refreshingly modern view on fashion, it was great to hear her comment on being a working mother and how she has reflected upon this with her work at Vogue …”that since the birth of her daughter her veiw on the modern woman had changed and if she wanted her daughter to become a certain kind of woman that she aspired to then she needed to make sure her readers could become that kind of woman” .

Korea Vogue asked fashion photographer Kim Kyoung Soo to realise a series of fashion portraits based on the traditionnal Korean costume, Hanbok. These beautiful photos capture a stillness that is so tranquil, I love the colour palettes against the neutral back ground. Images can be seen at Gallery Paris Beijing

And lastly the number one hit of Korean pop singer PSY, a nice note to go out on on a Friday, I LOVE IT !

WOW! Barbara Hulanicki

The exhibition captures her energy and design essence, the displays are creative and unstuffy, theres a very ‘Biba’ red wall with dresses and jackets to try on and imagine the fun of the Biba world.

The show has 3 or 4 brilliant films that portray the creative dynamism of Barbara’s life, one big creative outpouring of fashion illustration, fashion, textiles, interiors, architecture, hotels, cosmetics….starting from her Brighton Art College days right up to her present day endeavours with Top Shop, Habitat and George at ASDA.

I find it useful to put the colours down in to a collage format, painting them into strips and then adapting in Photoshop and then writing some notes that I picked up from the show. Quite often the colours I’m drawn to are already in my print palette for example this season its copper , we used it for Copper Kaleido and I will certainly be looking at using this again for my home range and also for my scarves.

New Scarves now on sale at Liberty

We are very pleased to announce that our scarves are now in Liberty of London, just in time for London Fashion Week so pop in if you can or visit our website for a closer look Jocelyn Warner

Flora Midnight

I have been wanting to translate some of my wallpaper designs into scarves for a long time and now I have finally been able to do it. The Letter scarf I designed some 25 years ago, which proves I’m now possibly vintage !!

In those days I hand printed them myself in my print studio and was lucky enough to sell to Paul Smith, Joseph and Bergdorf Goodman, although I really love screen printing it’s great to have them digitally printed this time round.

I Can’t Draw…

I’ve known Hannah since my Brighton Art college days, she has always been on the look out for found objects, scurrying through ones waste bins in search for discarded plastic bottle tops to fruit packaging. Now living on the beautiful West Coast of Scotland, apart from all her other illustrative projects to keep her busy Hannah has been running art classes to the locals, specially designed to break the mantra of the “ I can’t draw “ brigade. An amazing and truly inspirational project, her creative zest and positive thinking dribbles from the pages and always leaves me open mouthed at her energy to create and more importantly to share the buzz!

Mark Making – Cross Hatching

August 24th 2012

Cross Hatching

Tree for textured lines

Cross hatched BLUE

Cross hatched RED

I love the drawings of Eric Ravilious (see my blog September 13th 2010), especially the way he uses cross hatching to build up pattern in his paintings and prints. There are 100’s of ways one can make textures, apart from drawing textures using pen and ink or making them from Lino printing I sometimes use lines from something I may have photographed, here for example a lovely winters tree. Not sure how I would use this yet, I may just leave as they are.

Inspiring Colours for SS13

August 24th 2012

Roof Tops of Skopelos

A wonder through the town of Skopelos, pink, red and mint green

orange, mint and interesting grid pattern.

Orange and Blue

I set myself a little project whilst on holiday in Greece to see how many things I could take pictures of that weren’t of the blue sea, white sand, white washed houses, blue doors, painted furniture etc… i.e. that weren’t the typical post card images of Greece. I have to say I didn’t get that far with it as the sea and white washed houses are so tempting to snap at….. but I’m glad I did take a few as its really refreshing to look at them now I am back at home and I realise I have 100’s of the same looking white houses and same blue sea!!! Here are a few that I thought fit the colours predicted for Spring Summer 13.